Nick Seibel, publisher and editor of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This is a transcript of his conversation with Susan Morée.
Susan Morée:
So Nick, there's been a new development with the Pinos Altos mining exploration. Tell us about it.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, there's been a whole lot of public opposition about the plans by a company called Pinos Altos Exploration, which is actually a subsidiary of Ivanhoe Electric. They had a plan of operations to explore 642 separate mining claims up around Pinos Altos, covering more than 13,000 acres. A lot of folks from the community showed up at the Grant County Commission meeting recently. Just a lot of folks questioning that whole activity. And so Ivanhoe announced last month that they were going to be withdrawing that plan of operations that they had filed with the Forest Service. They just didn't think that there was going to be the kind of high-quality copper that they were really hoping for up there. A lot of folks really kind of looked at that as a win, but at virtually the same time, 250 other claims by a company called the Kennicott Exploration, which is owned by Rio Tinto International Holdings, which is a British-Australian mining company is looking at a different 5,000 acres in the Gila National Forest near the CDT (Continental Divide Trail) northwest of Silver City. So those have now been officially filed, and it looks like there may be more exploration to come by potentially other companies. So just because the one that was furthest along has been put on hold, looks like more is in the pipeline. A lot of folks keeping an eye on what's going on as far as mining exploration in the Gila.
Susan Morée:
Okay. There have been 3 candidates who have presented their case for becoming the next president of Western New Mexico University. Tell us about it.
Nick Seibel:
So we had two visits last week and one more visit yesterday. The final campus visit is actually happening today as we speak. And so the regents have planned a special meeting for March 17th after an executive session here later on this week. And so expect that we'll have a decision there about the next president of the university by the middle of the month. And we have had profiles for each one of the candidates from last week. The Tuesday candidate visit will be covered in tomorrow's paper, and then the final candidate will be profiled in Saturday's edition.
Susan Morée:
Okay. And tell us about, there's something new that's happened with the mental health grant. Tell us about what's going on there.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, and we talked about this just last week. It was a big, big deal. Silver Schools got awarded a $5 million grant under a program approved by Congress, part of the 2023 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that came out of that Uvalde school shooting over in Texas. And it was a big deal. Silver Schools is the only district in the state of New Mexico to receive funding under that grant. And they had spent about half of it so far, had about $2.5 million yet to go when the Trump administration took office and decided that it didn't align with their priorities for education funding. But because that was congressionally approved funding, They got taken to court by a number of entities, including a number of state attorneys general. There have been a couple of decisions so far. It's gone all the way to the appeals court. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the federal level made a ruling in that late last year, and then a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit denied the Education Department's emergency request injunction, basically saying they didn't want to have to pay that money. The three-person panel said, ‘You're going to have to pay that money,’ which leaves the Department of Education with a couple of things they can do. They could go to the Supreme Court, obviously, or they could try to deny Silver Schools the money under the terms of the grant. That would fall back on performance evaluations of the district, and those have all been really good so far, so that would be a tough road for the Education Department, whichever way they go. But Superintendent William Hawkins is not declaring total victory there yet. And as we talked about last week, the state of New Mexico stepped in with some mental health funding of their own that really has sustained large parts of what the district was already doing under that grant. So, one way or another, they're looking to have those services continue. But obviously, getting that $2.5 million dollars into Grant County would always be a good thing.
Susan Morée:
And where can readers find these stories, Nick?
Nick Seibel:
You can find us online anytime at scdailypress.com.
Susan Morée:
All right, thank you.
